This last consideration is an important principle at the base of democratic government--at least, so long as this does not degenerate into a mere tyranny of the majority--and the extension of the franchise in 1867 and 1884 has, I think, had a very important effect in bringing home to people that the arguments for extending the suffrage in the case of men apply equally to women with the same qualifications. I think we should find that many speeches used in favour of widening the suffrage in 1884 would serve as speeches at a women's suffrage meeting. I used to be impressed with the fact at the time, I remember. Probably we have noticed that the propriety of widows and other women householders having votes when the professed basis of the franchise is household suffrage, occurs of itself to the man in the street--or rather, perhaps, I should say to the man in the country village. I travelled the other day in a railway carriage filled with a party of women travelling from somewhere beyond Cambridge--I do not know what they were--widows and daughters of rather small tradesmen perhaps. Among other things they talked of among themselves was the suffrage--and very angry they were with the militants. "But mind you," said one, "I am not altogether against women having votes. I think it only fair that widows with houses should have it." I thought she and her companions belonged clearly to that neutral body of which I spoke just now; some day, when sound suffrage views are put before them, they will come down on the right side of the fence if not previously too much exasperated. Then, again, as regards educated people at least, I think the large and increasing number of educated women engaged in work useful to the community outside their own homes has had a great effect on the views both of men and women about the vote. These are three very important influences affecting the general atmosphere in which views are formed--the increased tendency to legislation affecting employments, the spread in all classes and parties of democratic views, the work done by women. And then, last but not least, is the steady work carried on in public and in private by the societies for promoting women's suffrage and their members from the commencement of the movement onwards. Our own society is a young one, but the pioneer societies now merged in the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies have worked hard in times of hope and in times of discouragement for half a century, and their labours have not been in vain. A movement grows like a snowball--the larger the number of its supporters the more rapidly it increases. Progress therefore of late years has been more rapid and more obvious than it used to be, but none the less the possibility of the present progress is largely due to the early efforts of the pioneers.